---
Issues to highlight:
- What gap in the infrastructure do these examples fill?
- Transparency
- Access and accountability
- Responsiveness
- Where is this going?
(Notes with links to projects below the table)
Table of presented solutions:
| Brian Lehmen of Village Enterprise Fund | Jody Ranck of IFTF, Grameen Bank | Brinda Dalal of PARC, SPARC | Jon Ramer of Interra and Main Street |
| Identified GAP | lack of capital in rural Africa | lack of capital and trust in Bangladesh (high density relative to rural Africa) | no safety net for crises, no suitable housing for displaced "pavement" dwellers | capital flight from local towns |
| Current status | ongoing since 1987, up to 2000 business starts per year | ongoing since 1970's, poster child for micro finance - Bank is now owned by members (borrowers) | 7 cities in India, 20 countries worldwide | launching 1st card in June |
| Transparency - How individuals see what is happening | local representatives visit villages and give money ($100-$150) to groups that want to start businesses | weekly self-help group meetings, public accounting for individual and group passbooks | colored paper (and other markers) to denote savings - loans are made to help cope with crisis | members recieve a card for purchases at local participating merchants; monthly statements tied to card including individual and aggregate spending and donations |
| Access and governance - Who controls participation | VEF decides who gets the money (presumably local representatives have significant discretion); group members (who form business together) accountable to each other | local groups of 5 make lending decisions and are accountable to each other - Bank officers form groups | local representatives (?) aggregate accounts opened/maintained by traditional banks | local group makes decisions collectively; regional access requires substantial infrastructure in place in the region (currently size of a region is ill defined) |
| Dynamics and sustainability - What are the feedback loops | grant given in 2 parts -- group must hit milestones to receive second part (Unclear if/how overall success of VEF is communicated to individual beneficiaries. They do use cell phones to check out the stories of local representatives since "only the devil" gives away money) | amounts of repayment and savings reported at weekly meetings interest payments reinvested (loaned out to other members) | amt of total savings; videos created by participants themselves used to tell stories of others in same situation; new housing associations | portion of money spent goes back into organization; group wiki makes all decisions and results public |
| Scalability - What's required for replication | Limited by how amount of donations that VEF can raise | organization of local groups by local bank representatives | workshops, local leadership (others?) | chicken and egg problem -- how to get sufficient buyers and merchants into the system; merchants encouraged to offer "value-added" tie-ins to other participating merchants |
| New GAPs or learnings | Difficulty and expense of money transfers (especially international, but also even local transfers in rural areas) | micro finance has taken on many different forms throughout the world -- oftentimes individual savings is in conflict with cultural norms of sharing resources; Jody notes that insurance (and savings) are more important than credit (Brinda agrees) | participatory decisions can be cheaper and have better effects, e.g. new housing built with shared bathrooms much better solution for displaced groups (undesirable for higher income groups) | Opportunities for social commerce "mash-ups" like directory cross-references; information/payment/membership cards can be used to make choices visible and support community processes |
Brian Lehmen of Village Enterprise Fund
how one can impact the poor, alleviate poverty
http://www.villageef.org
rural microfinance in East Africa
high tech solutions - delivery mechanisms - meeting the 16th century
why do we need transparency in transactions?
credible information is hard to come by in these rural villages
"Why are you giving us money?"
"Who would give us money but the devil?"
grants, not loans
difference in expectations over how to use the money
once demonstrated how a technology can be used for advantage, the adoption is very quick
access facilitated by technology, small transactions possible now
hard to be responsive on a large scale
1 loan of $1 million vs. 10,000 loans of $100
microfinance is generating secondary markets - buying loans, selling bonds, coming up with credit ratings
large returns on investment sometimes, not always - 200%, 300%
bringing transaction cost down, access up - enabling a person to person loan
training is not yet a requirement for grants (50% of businesses have access to 1 day training)
local representatives check up on grants
wire money in bulk to representatives - expensive, inefficient
Jody Ranck of IFTF, Grameen Bank
http://www.grameen-info.org
microcredit, wondered why nothing worked
studying Grameen Bank
went out into the village and found people who just needed capital
nearly 100% repayment, but they had forgot to collect collatoral
banks had 10-20% repayment
what impact a loan would have on women's health?
Self-employed Women's Association in India, somewhat more interesting than Grameen
disseration on the Rwandan genocide, human rights
victims, widows didn't have a sense of justice as in war crimes tribunals, but were interested in microcredit
what about the Grameen bank would work in Rwanda?
solidarity circles, groups of 5, 5-8 groups form a center, banker meets with centers - transparency
accounting happens in front of everyone - innovation based on transparency
working on the failures of eariler movements, small loans, not grants so it reaches poorest of poor
post-civil war issues of trust was a big barrier
microinsurance - where you had a places in southern Africa with 25-30% HIV rates
death insurance, funerals can cost a years income
not sure if microcredit is the best solution for everyone:
good for entrepreneurial poor, but savings might be more important for poorest of poor
microinsurance to protect the sustainability of microcredit institutions
#1 reason at Grameen for unpaid loans was health problems
self-help groups pool money to get access to health care system
ROSTA's - Korean grocery stores in US, Caribbeans, West Africans
inherent distrust of state, politics of the belly, politics of the everyday for the poor
16 decisions required by Grameen: boil water, small family, hard to implement => to not pay dowry
http://www.grameen-info.org/bank/the16.html
the social facet and savings facet of Grameen is not as well known as the credit facet
"You wanted a bicycle not a woman" - the group can be effective in forcing things good and bad
could there be new work-around cultural systems?
the loan must be used for economically productive activity
the woman (mature, successful members 8-10 years) will take the loan, say it is used for goats, give it to son, husband, daughter
but she maintains 100% repayment - the women get symobilc capital using it as social lubricant
is it increasing net capital?
maybe there is less economic wealth but total capital is higher because they know the best way to work the system
some of these were designed explicitly to change cultural systems
Bangledesh's BRAC sings a song equivalent to the 16 decisions
they also change the culture of the formal financial sector
Brinda Dalal of PARC, SPARC
The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) is an Indian NGO that supports two people's movements - the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan (MM)
http://www.sparcindia.org/
2005 - the year of microcredit - acknowledgment of the UN
ringing the stock exchange bell
women's initiatives in Africa and South Asia
participatory research and design
in 1985, Supreme Court said the Bombay Municipal Corp. could demolish pavement dwellings
Dharavi - $530 annual revenue - many entreprenuerial activities (leather goods exported to Germany, surgical thread, packaged food)
Jockin, "the armpit of Bombay - it stinks but is in a central location"
poverty and location: access to work without needing to spend money on transportation
demolitions caused SPARC and women to ask can we negotiate with the government to think strategically about evictions/relocation
developed into a large movement around housing and shelter
Micro-credit schemes began with green and pink slips in plastic bags - transparency
visibility in how different people were saving different amounts of money (savings, housing, crisis loans)
transparency + visualization: it was important to have a big number on the board of how much everyone was collectively saving
working with video - more informal statistical, qualitative data generated from local representatives asking demographic questions.
information captured with a video camera
the power of women hearing themselves and others on a screen talking about issues made them think in a more abstract way
Muslim women who wouldn't talk to sex workers, etc., but the videos, meetings on shelter issues and crisis loan programs helped get around it
workshops with international women's slum groups pantomiming what it feels like to have police come in and demolish your home - strong emotional connection
community joint accounts pooling savings
word spread person to person - those living along railway tracks asked that a center be set up
600 bank accounts in the first year
the official line: these people are illegal, have no access to ID cards, no permanent address
the Citibank officials listened to money though
re-thinking slum housing schemes: women said that individual bathrooms were not necessary - local solution
it helped the community prevent resale of houses since middle class families wouldn't accept this
Jon Ramer of Interra and Main Street programs
a platform for user-centric commerce
http://www.interraproject.org/
founded by founders of Odwalla and VISA, a nonstock corporation owned by its members
regret that the ownership never moved down to the consumers
3 way partnership:
grass-roots, top-down, outside-in
what is the community?
Base Map - 3 parts:
geographical locations, functional roles, affinity and interest areas
(i.e the mayor's pet project in Boston - Main Street,
Roots of Change fund - an agenda for sustainable agriculture,
who cares about water issues?)
multistakeholder process - connect the head, the heart, and the hands
not just a way to bring about change, but activate the will of the community
people are more willing to talk about sex before they talk about money
the idea is simple - make choices about how we spend our money
hometowns => clonetowns
have a card that you use at local businesses and a portion is a reward: money back to you and to your not-for-profits
how to offset the difference in price and restructure so it is no longer a social dilemma
Berkman Center for Internet and Society - user-centric commerce
- Community card - doesn't have to be used for payment, just to identify you
- Information card
- Payment card
Open Community Information Commons
Boston Main Street - http://bms.ragingweb.com
local business mashups and meshups
meshing directories, calendars, and news
every community has its own wiki site
sharing best practices - give me a referral and I will put $100 on your card
joint marketing - a technological suped-up Chambers of Commerce
institutionalizing (but still open) what used to be informal
in this chaordic model, the decision to let in a Starbucks is decided by the community, because franchices could be doing good for community
all meetings recorded
ownership, how are products made and distributed, how do you treat employees
SPUD http://www.spud.ca/ - Small Potatoes Urban Delivery
different visualizations for the individual and communities economic decisions:
personal economic footprint
a move to new social currency? (as in England)
cards coming out this year in Boston
it has to be a self-funding solution - need to have a paid person for an area
the Identity Mashup: One Big Soup
http://idmashup.com/wiki/Main_Page
anonymous authentication is key
better than regularly marketing? you only pay the fee if a sales is made
"the unimagined capacity"
Comments
Josephine Vaughn - the value and meaning of gifts, exchanges, and markets
Free Stuff party, Burning Man
paper by UK Design Council on Health Care:
co-creation of health care services: 80-90% done in household by women
why are some health care transactions not monetized and others are
shift from health care system to health economy - making the boundary more porous
where does learning happen?
groups will have to break through institutionalized and professional powers:
learning what happens with the black box you swipe your card through, doctors writing in latin
do you have to compensate the people whose homes you demolish for transportation costs? even if they are 'illegals'
the government forced to create Slum Redevelopment Association
participatory budgeting at Porte Allegre - free transport and better health
businesses at first went against participatory budgeting but then were for it because of less sick days
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.